American guitarist Ry Cooder released his first studio album for six years recently. The Prodigal Son (Fantasy Recordings, USA) has put aside his more politically engaged music -- as heard on a series of albums, Chavez Ravine (2005), My Name Is Buddy (2007), Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down (2011) and Election Special (2012) and returned to a more-gospel oriented sound that he created on his early albums.
Cooder could well be one of the least known US guitar masters. If it wasn't for his mesmerising soundtrack for Wim Wender's Oscar-winning move, Paris, Texas and the success of the Buena Vista Social Club, many people wouldn't know who he was. And yet, he had already attracted attention playing for Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band (especially on the epic Safe As Milk album), for Taj Mahal's R&B band (as Ryland P. Cooder) and as a session musician on several Rolling Stones' albums. In the mid-1980s he could pack the Albert Hall in London but could walk unrecognised in his hometown of Los Angeles.
Cooder has always been interested in "roots" music; after all, he started with blues, bluegrass (a bit unsuccessfully with legend Bill Monroe), R&B, Tex-Mex, gospel and Caribbean music. His early albums in the 1970s, like the breakthrough Into The Purple Valley (the first track of which, How Can You Keep On Moving (Unless You Migrate, Too), seems to be perfect for these troubled times), explored these styles, with a focus on blues and gospel. Paradise Lunch combined blues and folk, while Chicken Skin Music featured Tex-Mex and Hawaiian. These albums opened the door for me to find out more about styles like Tex-Mex, Caribbean folk music, Texas polka and Hawaiian slack key guitar music.
And then in the 1990s he collaborated on two very successful "world music" crossover albums -- A Meeting By The River with Hindustani classical musician V.M. Bhatt and Talking Timbuktu with the late great Malian guitarist, Ali Farka Toure. It was also during this period that he worked with Nick Gold as a co-producer of the Buena Vista Social Club, which significantly raised the profile of Cuban traditional music and garnered a bagful of awards. For his efforts in Havana, he was fined US$25,000 by the US government for violating the then-US embargo against Cuba.
Fans of Okinawan music will also know that Cooder played guitar on some of the sessions for Kina Shoukichi's 1980 album, Blood Lines. His guitar can be heard on one of Kina's biggest hits, Subete No Hito No Kokoro Ni Hana O, which was covered by folk-rockers Caravan in Thailand, as Hana (and as a result, many Thais think this is a Thai song).
The bluesy gospel sound of the new album is, in a way, a return to Cooder's roots; after all, he has recorded songs by gospel-bluesmen like Blind Willie Johnson (for instance, Dark Was The Night), Bahamian singer Joseph Spence's Great Dream Of Heaven (one of my favourite Caribbean musicians) and by others like Mississippi Fred McDowell.
The spiritual side of blues and gospel is the subject of the eight cover songs on the album, including wonderfully evocative versions of Fred McDowell's Nobody's Fault But Mine and Everybody Ought To Treat A Stranger Right. Carter Stanley's Harbor Of Love, the Pilgrim Traveller's Straight Street and an irresistible cover of the traditional gospel song I'll Be Rested When The Roll Is Called are the standout covers on the album.
Cooder has suggested in interviews that the songs he chose have one thing in common: empathy -- something that is sorely lacking in today's modern life.
The three original compositions are all relevant to some of the issues we all face today. Shrinking Man has a stab at globalisation and Gentrification is a funny protest against a process that is transforming many cities. But the song that really got to me and one that shows where Cooder's sympathies lie is the awesome tribute to that great anti-fascist American troubadour Woodie Guthrie, Jesus And Woody, which imagines a conversation between Woody and Jesus. Interestingly, Jesus appears to like "sinners better than fascists" and warns Woody that people had better "get together" or they would have no chance of change.
Food for thought. Highly recommended. More information from rycooder.com
Ry Cooder's two very successful world music crossover albums.
John Clewley can be contacted at clewley.john@gmail.com
